Author: Following last evening’s run-up to around $24,300, today the markets are deep in the red. Bitcoin dipped below $22,700, charting a decrease of about 3.5% on the day, while altcoins crash even harder.
This downturn coincides with a market-wide pullback in traditional finance as major European indices tumble while US index futures are also down in the pre-market hours.
Bitcoin Price Loses $1,400 in Hours, Market Follows
Yesterday was a good day for Bitcoin as the price for the cryptocurrency skyrocketed yet again to a new all-time high around $24,300.
However, today is an entirely different story, especially in the past few hours. At the time of this writing, the price is trading at around $22,700, which is a decrease of more than $1,500 in just a few hours.
In fact, BTC dropped down to $22,411 on Bitstamp but has since managed to recover some of the losses.
The entire market is feeling the pressure as all altcoins are bleeding out as well. Their losses are even more substantial than those of BTC. Ripple’s XRP lost about 8.55%, ETH is down about 7%, while Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash are down just shy of 10% each.
In short, the entire market lost about $40 billion in the past hours in what seems to be a notable correction.
Legacy Markets Tumble on New Coronavirus Variant Fears in the UK
European markets are currently bleeding out as the FTSE 100 is down 2.8% at the time of this writing. One of the possible reasons for this might be the fresh pandemic restrictions in Britain and that much of Europe had shut its borders to the UK.
On Saturday, the Prime Minister of the UK, Boris Johnson, held an emergency press conference and announced the return of conditions much like the previous lockdown for people in London, South East, and the East of England.
Those Tier 4 restrictions were introduced as an attempt to curb the spread of a new type of COVID-19 that was discovered last week and is touted to spread up to 70% faster than the previous variants.
The US markets are also currently feeling the pressure as the major indices futures are trading in the red during the pre-market hours.
The S&P 500 futures are down 0.4%, while futures the Dow Jones Industrial Average and NASDAQ 100 are also charting similar decreases.
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